Claire
by cylonc
Summary: It's just another day on the job until Mac meets with the unexpected and discovers the unbelievable at a crime scene: Claire is alive.
1. Ghosts

**Title: Claire**

**Chapter 1 - Ghosts**

**Summary: **It'a just another day on the job until Mac meets with the unexpected and discovers the unbelievable at a crime scene: Claire is alive.

**A/N:** Okay, I confess, I'm a serious Smacked fan - but this was just begging to be played with. After hearing about the sad news regarding Melina Kanakaredes's contract (and just about choking on the awful Mac pairings in the later half of S6), I started thinking about the only other person I could possibly ever bear to see with Mac. Try to give it a chance and let me know what you think - good or bad, I'd love to know. (This is my first time posting a CSI:NY fic here, so be gentle, 'kay? :)

**Content Warning:** I'm not accustomed to posting for triggers, BUT since the upcoming chapters will, at least in part, be dealing with scenes from the aftermath of September 11th, I figured I should give fair warning. In short, if you are sensitive to the events surrounding that day (which is understandable) and find it traumatic, I suggest you don't continue reading - or at least skip over certain parts. (I promise, it's not all that graphic.) Also: the T rating applies for sexualized situations in later chapters and some entertaining cursing laced throughout. ;)

**Disclaimer: **I don't own, I don't make money, and I am poor-but if you'd like to take my student loan interest payments off my hands, I'd be more than happy to give them to you. :) CSI: NY and and its characters belong to CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer.

* * *

The Avalanche pulled up to Iggy's Pop & Pie; the yellow police tape surrounding the sea-foam tiled diner glowed eerily under the street lights and lightly falling snow. Detective Mac Taylor followed the taped crime scene perimeter with his eyes, realizing that the first responders had cordoned off an entire city block in the ever-busy theater district.

"Big crime scene." Mac noted to his partner, Stella Bonasera, with an amused smile tugging on his lips as he pulled the keys from the ignition and opened his door. The air was crisp and new with the snow fall, overcoming the usual, slightly humid and metallic smell of the city. Mac took a deep breath of the not-quite frigid air and glanced up at the small, white flakes floating down from the dark sky. It would be Christmas soon.

"Big crime?" Stella quickly smiled back before opening her own door and making her way to the back of the truck to grab her kit. In front of them, Mac saw Detective Donald Flack wave while walking at a quick pace towards them from the front of the diner.

"'Bout time the two of you showed up!" Don called out as he bent down under the police tape and exited the crime scene. Mac gave him a quick nod of acknowledgment. "What happened? Get stuck on 41st again?"

"Nope." Stella shook her head. Mac quietly accepted the kit she handed to him, watching with amusement as his partner flashed the younger detective an impish smile. "42nd."

"Geez." Don rolled his eyes. "Well, Hawkes already beat you to it."

Mac nodded again and took a closer look at their surroundings, noticing the third Avalanche at the far end of the perimeter.

"Isn't that Danny's truck?"

"Yeah. He and Lindsay are in there." Flack gestured with his head towards the diner and then pointed up the street. "You know, they live a couple of blocks up that way—they showed up after I called it in. Apparently, they know the owner."

"Iggy, I presume?" Stella quipped as she led the way under the police tape and through the perimeter.

"Yep, that's the one." Don laughed. "He makes a killer pie, you know? Remember that pecan pie Linds brought around for Thanksgiving? Well, this is—"

"Don." Mac interrupted the young man, eye brows slightly raised. "The crime scene?"

"Right, crime scene." It was hard to tell in the cold air under the yellow streetlights, but Mac thought he could discern a slight coloring of the young detective's cheeks. "Well, all I can say is it's a good thing Danny and Lindsay did show up, 'cause this one covers a lot of ground." Don looked at them and gestured widely at the diner.

Mac looked again at the scene, committing every detail to memory. He noticed several officers posted at the entrance of the diner, and he could just make out the profile of Danny Messer through the window; it looked as though the young CSI was talking with someone, but Mac couldn't see who. Looking back at the outside, he followed a path of footprints in the snow from the door to the street curb. There was a gold Honda Civic impaled on the corner of the diner to his right, surrounded by paramedics and a medical response unit. To the left, a dark blue utility van had run up onto the curb and slammed into a post office box.

Mac leaned down and picked up a letter from beneath his shoe. It was an old air mail envelope with blue and red stripes bordering the edges. In the careful, hesitant writing of a young child, the mailing address read: "Mr. Santa Clause, The North Pole, The Arctic." Looking up again, Mac realized that the entire street was covered in letters that had exploded from the mail box on impact.

"Don, someone's going to have to collect these." He handed the letter to him with a smile. "We need to make sure they don't get lost."

"On it." Don winked at him and turned around, waving at one of the uniformed police men guarding the perimeter. "Yo, Ramirez! Grab a bag—you're gonna play mail man tonight. We wanna make sure these letters make it to the North Pole, or there are going to be some very unhappy kiddies on Christmas morning."

Turning back to Mac and Stella, Don flashed them both a smile before pulling out his notes.

"So, you two wanna know what happened, or you just here for a slice of pie?"

Mac smirked at the young detective's enthusiasm and bent down to get a closer look at a collection of skid marks in the snow.

"I thought it was our job to tell you what happened?" Stella teased the tall man.

"Indulge me."

"Okay, Detective." Mac stood up and looked at Don with a faint smile. "What happened here?"

"Thought you'd never asked." Flipping open the notebook, Mac watched Don quickly school his features. Now it was down to business. "So, according to the one and only Iggy—known better to his dearly departed mother as Isaiah Compton—these two punks come rushing in waving guns just as the after-theater crowd is settling in for an evening cuppa joe and slice. They were wearing ski masks but one of the other witnesses, the owner's daughter, says that she saw a bulldog tattoo on one of the guy's arms."

Mac raised his eyebrows. "Bulldog?"

"Yeah, like I said, punks." Flack shook his head. "So they come in looking for the usual: cash, jewelry, mp3 players, cell phones… you know. But Mr. Bulldog gets jumpy and then one of the customers sneezes, so he shoots the poor guy in the chest. Punk Number Two freaks out, yelling and firing his gun at the ceiling. Together they make a B-line for the van and the geniuses pull out into oncoming traffic. According to witnesses on the street, they almost ran into one car, which ended up slamming into the side of the diner; then they lost control and plowed into that mailbox over there."

The three detectives had reached the entrance to the diner. Inside, Mac could see Danny standing over a small booth with his wife, Lindsay, sitting in a chair next to him—both were talking to an older man sitting in the booth. He could be no younger than sixty and he had wispy white hair and a round potbelly; he reminded Mac of Archie Bunker.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mac noticed a flash of red. Looking at the far end of the diner, Mac caught a glimpse of a woman with short brown hair wearing a long-sleeved burgundy shirt and cut-off shorts disappear into the back room. For the briefest of moments, Mac felt his heart skip in recognition, knowing that what he saw couldn't be and certainly wouldn't be true.

It was nine years after her death and yet Claire still haunted him; a face in the crowd crossing a busy street or a snatch of conversation overheard as he passed by the entrance to the subway. Mac always looked for her, knowing he wouldn't find her. Scientifically, he knew it was a momentary misfiring of chemicals in his brain, neurons and receptors tripping up for the briefest of seconds, that led him to these moments of déjà-vu. Tonight was just another ghost moment.

"Mac?" Stella's voice cut through his distraction and he refocused on his partner.

"Sorry," he nodded in slight apology. "So, what happened to the robbers?"

Don huffed, shaking his head yet again.

"Would you believe the idiots got away? Witnesses report seeing two men in dark clothes and ski masks exiting the van and running east, away from the scene. We've tried to track them down but with the snow…" Flack's voice trailed off in frustration.

Mac nodded and smiled at his friend's obvious disappointment. "We'll find them. How's the vic?"

"You mean the guy in the diner? He's stable." The detective nodded. "It was a sloppy shot but the EMFs patched him up. Hawkes got a good look at him and said he thinks he'll be fine. The guy driving the other car should be okay, too, though I know I'd be pissed if that were my car wrapped around the side of a diner like a horseshoe."

"Well, that's good news at least. That they'll be okay, I mean." Stella smiled, looking on the bright side of things. Mac nodded but looked at Don curiously; surely the detective hadn't called the head of the crime lab and his team for a simple robbery, though he would admit that it was refreshing to not find himself craning over a dead body with blood pooling at his feet.

"And you called us because..." He waited for Don to finish the statement.

"Oh, sorry!" Don flashed him a quick smile. "I thought you people worked with crime scenes, my mistake."

"Don." Mac reproached the young man and shook his head, grinning despite himself. "This isn't a homicide or a high profile case—why are we here?"

"Yeah, yeah." Don sheepishly looked at the both of them. "Just don't kill me, okay?"

"I don't like the sound of this." Stella rubbed her hands together, giving a brief glance back up at the sky. "And hurry it up, the snow's coming down harder."

"Fine." Don huffed and looked apologetically at Mac. "You know the vic who was shot, the one who sneezed and got a chest full of lead instead of a 'god bless you'? Turns out he's Sinclair's godson."

Mac ground his teeth at the mention of the Chief of Police's name. When he got back to the office he was going to put a call into the man and make it clear that _his_ team and _his_ lab did not simply serve at the Chief's convenience, but in the pursuit of the greater good and fair justice in the great city of New York. And it was a big city; crime never stopped. Surely he should be somewhere else, solving a more important crime. _No_, he reminded himself as he tried to control his rising anger, _crime is crime_. _This is the Job_.

"So here we are." His voice was tight but resigned. There was nothing left for him but to process and solve the case as quickly as possible, for his own sanity as much as for Sinclair's benefit. Mac offered Don a small smile that wasn't much more than a grimace, trying to reassure the man that he understood the situation.

"Exactly." Stella huffed in frustration and looked around again. "So, partner, inside or out?"

Mac considered her question and realized his toes were freezing. Not waiting for her to reconsidering her question, Mac opened the door to the diner.

"In."

"And they said chivalry was dead." Stella winked at him and walked off towards the blue utility van. "But you owe me a slice!"

* * *

Mac walked into the diner and was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of sweets; it reminded him of his grandmother's kitchen. Strong currents of cinnamon, vanilla and even cardamom seemed to permeate the place. However, just to the left of where he stood he noticed a small, red puddle on the floor: blood.

"I'm guessing that's not cherry filling."

"Boss!" Danny turned around and offered a smile. From behind him Lindsay peeked out and smiled, too, her hands resting flat on the table next to the folded hands of the older man. "Mac, this is Iggy, he owns the diner."

"Sir." Mac nodded, setting his kit down on a near by table. "I take it you all know each other?"

Danny scratched his head nervously and looked at his wife.

"Yeah, sorry for showing up like this. It's just, we were in the neighborhood and all."

Standing up, Lindsay patted her husband's arm and looked at Mac hopefully.

"We bring Lucy here all the time, Jay always gives her an extra cookie and Luce just loves it, so when we heard…"

"They were just putting this old man's heart at ease." The white-haired owner interjected. "Danny-boy here was telling me and Jay—that's my daughter, she's out back turning off the ovens—how you and your team'll track down these idiots in no time, with your computers and DNA machines and whatever else it is that you use."

"It's fine." Mac looked back at Lindsay. "Where's Lucy?"

"Home, sleeping. I got Mrs. Figs next door to watch her but I probably shouldn't stick around too long. I don't want Luce to wake up and..."

There was a framed charcoal drawing on the wall behind the booth, Mac noticed distractedly. It was eerily familiar. Stepping closer, he nodded at his two CSIs as they moved out of his way, clearly picking up on his now divided attention. It was a cityscape; one of Manhattan, to be precise. Only, it must have been an old one, Mac grimly realized, as the World Trade Center Towers were still anchoring the far end of the sketch, tethering the island to the sky. The strokes of the charcoal were strong around the building outlines but then they feathered out in radiating lines, affecting an iridescence of the city sky at night. It was haunting and ethereal, as the whole sketch seemed to glow in traces of black and white.

Mac's heart tightened in his chest and realized why it seemed so familiar. Claire had sometimes drawn such cityscapes, sitting at the kitchen window in their apartment on the rare night she didn't come home utterly exhausted from work. _It's the light_, she would say to him as she ran her finger across the paper, smudging a cloud across the carbon sky. He had thrown all of her sketches out after she died.

"Not bad, huh?" Mac started as Iggy's voice interrupted his reverie. Looking at the older man he noted a glint of pride in his brown eyes.

"It's very good." Mac smiled at him, observing the proprietary hand Iggy tapped the sketch's frame with. "Did you do it?"

Iggy laughed. It was a percussive bark that rattled his ears.

"Good God, no! The last time I tried to draw anything I was a short thing, full of piss, in reform school." The diner owner leaned in conspiratorially and winked at Mac. "That was almost fifty years ago, in case you were wondering, detective." Iggy sighed and leaned back, again. "No, no, that would be my daughter's doing, Jay. She's quite the artist—and she bakes, too, you know? This whole place is her doing, really."

"Hmm." Mac pondered while looking around the diner again. It looked like almost any other diner he could find open on the corner streets of Manhattan, but it smelled unbelievable. Looking at the display case behind the bar, Mac counted almost a dozen pies and all of them looked fresh. In the case next to the register he noticed a stockpile of cookies overflowing from silver trays. "And the name?" Mac asked, turning back to the others. "Surely it's not a coincidence that it sounds like Iggy Pop?"

"Wow, Mac." Danny laughed at his boss. "Leave it to you to make the connection. You know it took Linds a whole three months to get the name? Hey!" He jumped back as his wife swatted his arm.

"That was my idea." Iggy nodded with a victorious smile. "But enough tongue wagging; how about catching those idiots that shot up my customers? It's bad for business, you know."

"Of course." Mac turned back to open his kit and pulled out a set of gloves. "Danny," he called over his shoulder. "Stella's—"

Just then the door to the diner opened and his partner walked in with Sheldon Hawkes in tow, both shaking off a few flakes of snow from their hair.

"Brrr." She shuddered. "I don't care what you say Mac, the snow's coming down hard, the temperature's dropped five degrees in as many minutes, and it's _freezing_ out there. We can't finish processing the scene until we've gotten feeling back in our fingers. Plus, there's an old, steel locker in the back of the truck that's completely frozen shut; we're going to have to take it back to the lab and warm it up before we can pry it open."

Mac opened his mouth to respond, willing to trade places and finish up outside, but turned curiously as he heard movement behind him. The silver doors that led to the back room—presumably the kitchen—swung open with a clatter as if someone had kicked them. Slowly, the brown-haired woman he had seen earlier walked backwards through the doors, her oven-mitt clad hands carefully balancing two full trays of cookies. They were chocolate chips, judging by the large, glistening and delicious looking brown spots scattered across the cookies. Her head down, watching the items in her hands and her brow knit in concentration, she turned towards the counter and called out to the room.

"So, I think they're a little too burnt to sell, Ig, but I'm sure there are a couple of friendly, neighborhood cops around here that wouldn't mind a chocolate chip or two to keep them warm, brown edges or not!"

Mac felt his heart constrict at the sound of her cheerful yet matter-of-fact voice. Her brown hair was short, sweeping just past her chin, with lighter highlights in places, while the occasional wave flipped the end of a lock up. But it wasn't all that much shorter, nor all that much lighter, Mac realized with an electric jolt that traveled up his spine. The front of her burgundy t-shirt read in bold capital letters, "NYCPS PI DAY, 3.14.2010 —IGGY'S POP & PIE," while the top of it sloped off her left shoulder, clearly several sizes too big for her and dwarfing her light frame. She kept her eyes focused downwards on the trays as she approached the counter and Mac couldn't see her whole face, but her eyes were blue, he knew; her eyes had always been blue. He tried to open his mouth to say something or to call her name, but his voice abandoned him.

Having finally set the trays down on the counter, she pulled off her mitts, tossed them to the side, and looked up with a genuine smile at the rest of the room.

Mac finally found his voice and called to her, though it came out no more than a whisper.

"Claire."

Her eyes landed on him in surprise and her face faltered, the color draining from her face as her mouth fell open. A distraught and confused looked wrinkled her forehead and she leaned forward to steady herself on the counter.

"Claire!" Mac called out again, this time in warning, and took a step forward to stop her but he was seconds too late as her hand came to rest on the hot cookie sheet.

"SONNUVABITCH!" The woman jumped back from the counter, waving her hand in the air and cursing. "MOTHER-LOVIN' SONNUVABITCH!"

"Jay, girlie, are you okay?" Mac heard Iggy stand up from the booth behind him but Mac beat him to the woman's side. Reaching for her hand and dragging her to the counter sink, Mac turned on the faucet and thrust her hand under the cold tap water.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" The woman struggled to free her right hand. "Let go of me!"

Mac held her arm still, refusing to let go, and took the opportunity grab her left hand and examine it. She went rigid. His grip was forceful, and somewhere in the back of his head he knew he was probably scaring the woman, whoever she was or seemed to be. Looking at her palm he noticed the skin was completely scarred; smooth, shock white, and soft like polished porcelain. There was a thick band of darker skin wrapped around her fourth finger, the faintest hint of ridges on that small patch of unscarred skin was a stark contrast to the unmarked planes that covered the rest of her palm. Glancing over to her right hand, which he was still holding underneath the running water, he noticed similar scaring on her other palm.

"How did this happen?" Mac whispered, lost in his examination. The young woman gasped, tugging her left hand away from him gently. Mac realized that until that point she had stayed stiff as he had clutched at her hands. Lifting his eyes, he searched her face for clues. There were more lines on her face now, the smile lines around her eyes had deepened over the past nine years, and she had a small, star shaped scar on her right temple—but it was Claire's face, all the same. She would be what, now? Thirty-seven? No, her birthday wasn't for another week. Thirty-six, then. Mac smiled. He found himself lost in the impossible familiarity of her stare as it seemed to look right through him. Her eyes were wide and she bit her bottom lip, drawing her mouth tight. If she had been anyone else, Mac would have expected to find fear in her eyes; instead, all he read was shock and pain in the lines of her face as she searched his own eyes for understanding.

What had happened to her? How could she be here? He was in chaos; his mind insisted that he be rational but every instinct he possessed yelled at him that this beautiful, brown-haired woman was his wife. Of course, it was utterly impossible, he knew. She wasn't Claire; Claire had died on September 11th in the Towers, of that much he was certain. The fact that the surprised woman he was now standing next to looked identical to his dead wife was simply coincidence. A terrible, awful, gut-wrenching coincidence, Mac reflected, but the alternative simply wasn't possible. With a sigh, Mac swallowed his questions and finally let go, his hand still hovering above her arm, realizing that he had been acting without thought, almost robotically, as though this woman actually were Claire.

"What's going on?" He heard Danny ask and he suddenly became aware of the rest of the room again. Looking up, Mac saw the surprised faces of his team.

"I don't believe it." Stella whispered, her eyes tightly focused on the woman standing next to Mac. "It's not possible…"

Mac heard a small splash as the faucet shut off.

"Claire?" A ghostly voice next to him asked and he turned back to the heart-wrenchingly familiar brown-haired woman. "Who's…?" Her question trailed off and Mac noticed with alarm as she brought both her hands up to her forehead, her skin turning sheet white before his eyes. She took an unsteady step backwards and sighed, rubbing her forehead.

"Jay?" With unusually spry movement for a man of his age, Iggy push past Mac and reached his daughter, gripping her arms in concern and holding up her now clearly sagging frame. Mac remained frozen, completely at a loss as to how to help this woman who looked so much like his wife.

"Here." Mac looked over with surprise as Sheldon walked up behind the diner owner. "Let's get her sitting."

A sudden flurry of movement behind him reminded Mac that the rest of the team was still there. Turning, he met Stella's concerned eyes, still wide with surprise, and simply stared back. He was at a loss and she would know it.

In another life, Stella and Claire had been friends—at first it was because, as Claire had often teased him, any woman in Mac Taylor's life, bullheaded and strong-willed as he was, needed a friend to commiserate with. But Mac liked to think that they had become real friends in the short time they had known each other, establishing a relationship that extended well beyond their mutual connection. They bought shoes together, which he knew counted for something, though the exact reason why would forever be beyond his comprehension. When Claire died, Stella had found him, and together they had shared their grief. Stella knew; she had been there when Mac finally started to pick up the pieces of his life again, and she knew that Humpty Dumpty would never really get put together again, not without Claire. And yet, somehow, he had kept going and he had been okay.

Mac watched as Danny and Lindsay made space for the distressed woman at the booth, both shooting each other questioning glances as Iggy and Sheldon eased her light frame into the seat.

"Water?" Sheldon looked up hopefully at Mac. Mac ignored the young man, too engrossed in the rest of the scene at the booth. She looked just like Claire, he wondered to himself again, she _had_ to be Claire, she _couldn't_ be Claire. She was leaning forward in the booth, her head resting in her hands and her shoulders tensed. Truly, she had turned so white Mac wasn't entirely sure that he wasn't looking at an actual ghost.

"I've got it, Sheldon." Mac felt Stella place a hand on his arm, gently pushing him aside, as she acknowledge the young doctor. She had grabbed a glass and was filling it with water from the faucet, her eyes watching him carefully and then glancing back at the woman in the booth. "Mac?" Her soft query brought him back to reality and he found his voice again.

"Yeah," his voice was gruff with emotion and he gripped his hand in frustration. He needed to regain control, and he need it _now_. "I just don't know how—"

"I know." She smiled comfortingly at him. "Let's sort things out, okay? And here." She handed him the glass of water. "Let's go introduce ourselves, _properly_."

Looking down at the glass in his hand and then up at the brown-haired woman in the booth, Mac nodded to his partner. Stella gripped his arm lightly and offered him a final smile before turning towards everyone else. Grateful that she seemed to have a better handle on the situation than he, Mac fell in step behind her and crossed the room.

"What's going on?" Lindsay asked her husband, leaning into his solid form.

"Ya got me, babe." Danny shook his head and met Mac's eyes as he and Stella approached from the other side of the counter, his eyebrows raised in question. "Boss?"

Mac pressed his lips into a frown and shook his head. Now was not the time to explain his own irrational behavior, he realized, _if _there was a time. The head of the crime lab didn't exactly relish explaining to his team that he thought the diner owner's daughter was somehow, impossibly, his wife. He was close with his team, it was true, but this was bordering on certifiable insanity—he might as well submit his resignation to Sinclair now and check himself into the psych ward at St. Vincent's for testing.

"Jay." Iggy sat next to the very distressed woman, rubbing her back comfortingly. _His daughter_, Mac reminded himself. "It'll go away soon, just like always—but I can grab the pills Moritz gave you, too."

"Does this happen often?" Sheldon asked clinically, standing to the side and watching the woman very much, Mac realized with a smile, like a hawk.

"Yeah, sometimes." The quiet voice was suddenly stronger as the brown-haired woman pulled her head out of her hands and looked up at everyone else. "Sorry." Her voice fluctuated nervously as she offered up an embarrassed grin. "Didn't mean to make a fool of myself in front of a bunch of strangers." Mac found her eyes resting on his face again as her words echoed in his head, _strangers_, and he felt his blood run cold, still unsure of himself. He watched as her brow furrowed though her smile stayed in place.

"Don't sweat it." Danny piped in encouragingly. "Though I don't know if Lindsay and I count as strangers, exactly."

She grinned nervously and shrugged her shoulders in surrender. "Fine, but I'm pretty sure the NYPD has more important things to deal with right now, all the same." Again her eyes found his, searching and confused—Mac found himself riveted by her questioning gaze, wondering if his face held the answer to the unknown question her eyes seemed to be asking.

"Hey, Ig," Danny's almost forced lighthearted call cut through Mac's thoughts. "Are you the one who taught Jay to curse like a sailor? I'm not gonna lie, that was pretty impressive."

"No." Much to everyone's surprise, Mac's clear and definitive answer echoed Iggy's own guffawing protestation. The room suddenly seemed very still and quiet as Mac finally realized he had answered the question out-loud.

"Oh?" Iggy's voice was tight and controlled. Mac noted the guarded curiosity in the older man's eyes, tempered by his tightly clenched hand on his daughter's shoulder. He was protecting her, it seemed. _Protecting her from me_, Mac considered, realizing how untoward his recent actions must seem to everyone else.

"I..." Mac hesitated in his response, unsure of what to say but unwilling to confess the truth behind his words. He knew he couldn't explain. Claire had always had a rather hilarious blue streak in her, Mac remembered, it was part of what endeared her to him, which is why he had replied the way he did. Mentally kicking himself, he knew the brown-haired woman couldn't be his wife and still he had responded as if she were, as if he really knew her.

Just then, as if she had sensed his own confusion and took pity on him, she laid her good hand on her father's arm, drawing his attention away from Mac.

"Ig, the pills? Could you, please?"

Mac watched the old man nod, kiss her temple lightly, and stand up from the booth, taking the time to raise his eyebrows humorlessly and give Mac a not-quite-cold warning stare before heading past Sheldon and crossing to the other side of the diner.

"I'll be right back, girlie."

Finally firming up his resolve as the old man disappeared into the back room, Mac cleared his throat and stepped forward, placing the glass of water in front of the woman who was causing him so much trouble by simply existing.

"Here. It'll help."

She looked up at him again, her eyes searching. It was the oddest sensation; it reminded him of his days in the Marines. After he had come home from Beruit, he and the other men in his battalion had unloaded from the plane at the Airforce base and walked into a sea of waiting wives, girlfriends, and anxious family members—all of them searching the soldiers' faces for some hint of recognition. He did understand the looks then but he did now; war changes people and distance and time can warp relationships beyond familiarity. Mac remembered looking into his own mother's eyes as he disembarked. She had place her hand on his face and asked him quite bluntly, _Is it you? Are you the same?_ He hadn't understood then, but his mother had been right; he was not the same man he had been when he had left for the war.

It unnerved him that this woman, Claire's doppelganger, looked at him in a similar fashion now. She was a stranger; there should be no recognition. Mac tightened his fist, willing himself a thousand miles away, and pressed on.

"I'm sorry for my actions earlier; I did not intend to distress you." Unable to continue looking at her, unable to pretend she didn't look exactly like Claire, he looked down at his hands. "My name is Detective Mac—"

"Mac?" He looked back up, surprised by her interruption. Her face was now indecipherable and she held her hands tightly clasped in front of her.

"Yes." He nodded at her with chagrin, feeling completely out of his depth. "Detective Mac Taylor."

This time she rewarded him with a slight smile before furrowing her brow again and pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Hmm." She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head thoughtfully. "Mac."

"Yes?" Hearing the woman repeat his name gave him goosebumps, the softness in her voice too familiar—it was hard for him to believe that she wasn't Claire. And yet, her face was clearly troubled, though Mac could not decided if it were her burnt hand, her now evident headache, or his own name that was the cause.

"Mac." She quietly rolled his name around in her mouth again to his growing confusion and exasperation, and she stared out the diner window, distractedly rubbing her right temple. After a moment she turned her head back towards him, her eyes searching his face. When she finally spoke again Mac felt that the floor must have dropped out from under him as the real world quickly disappeared from view. Her voice was quiet and distant, like a ghost. "McCanna?"

Mac heard Stella gasp behind him as Danny shuffled nervously at his side, cursing with surprise under his breath, but they all were distant noises, far away from the upside down planet he now seemed to be inhabiting. He felt as if life had just run up and smacked him between the eyeballs. Unsure of his own feet and slightly dizzy, he quickly grabbed the chair he had seen Lindsay sitting in earlier and promptly sank into the seat, all the while staring at the woman who could only be his wife. Now he recognized what his heart had been trying to tell him from the moment he stepped into the diner; it was impossible _but_ he knew Claire was sitting not four feet in front of him. Alive. She was alive. **Alive**. The word echoed in this head, clanging so wildly it deafened him.

She was watching him intently, her azure eyes searching his face with something that Mac thought looked like a mixture of fear and hope. But then the world bloomed into motion around him again. Mac turned as the diner door opened, Don standing in the door way.

"Someone wanna tell me why I wasn't invited to the party?" His voice was irritated, despite his joking. "I got a dozen uniforms out there _freezing_ their badges off waiting on you guys and Sinclair on the phone wondering why the hell the scene hasn't been processed yet!" He looked seriously at Mac and the team gathered around the booth and gave them a concerned frown. "You wanna tell me what's going on?"

Mac stood up slowly and shook his head, taking a moment to shoot a 'back-to-business' look to the rest of his team. It was an automatic response; inside he was still sitting in the chair, floundering at the impossibility of the situation.

"Danny," He turned to the young detective. "Are you staying?"

Danny pulled his arm away from his wife, shooting her a confused look before looking back at him.

"Uh, yeah, Boss, but—"

"I want you to finish up in here." He cut in, unwilling to broker any discussion about what had just occurred. He was still unsure himself and he was now pointedly ignoring the woman in the booth behind him. "Lindsay, go home, I'm sure Lucy's missing you. Stella and Sheldon, if you think you've warmed up enough by now, let's go outside and see if we can't find anything in the van that will clue us into who our shooters are—or something to warm up the lock on that case you found."

Mac sighed and watched his team mobilize again, the significant looks they were shooting each other weren't lost on him, but he chose to ignore them all the same. Suddenly, he found himself ignoring quite a lot. Iggy had walked back into the room while Mac was addressing the team and he could hear him quietly talking to his daughter behind him.

"Look, Mac." Stella walked up to him, waving Sheldon on through the diner door with Don on his heels. "I'll be right there," she called back. "Look, it doesn't take three CSIs to process a utility van—"

"Stella—" Mac cut in as tried to walked past her, only to find her standing squarely in front of him again.

"No, Mac." She glared at him and then looked behind him at the booth he was trying so hard to forget. Her face softened as she looked past him. "I don't have any more of an idea of what's going on right now than you do. But you want to find out, I _know_ you do. Hell, _I_ do! And maybe, well, just maybe…" Her voice trailed off. Mac guessed that even she was unwilling to properly voice the same hope he had been trying so hard to silence in his own heart. She looked back at him and offered him an appeasing smile. "Damnit, Mac, just talk to her." And with that she briskly turned on her heels and headed out the door, turning back with one final thought before leaving. "And we're not even going to try opening that box here; I don't care what you say, it's iced shut and it's going to the lab with the rest of the van for full processing."

Mac shook his head, speechless in the wake of his partner's departure. Stella was right about everything, of course. He knew he was being ridiculous about the situation. Only Mac Taylor would discover that his wife was alive, after nine years of believing she had died in the Twin Towers on 9/11, and then promptly go back to work as if nothing had happened.

Steeling himself, he turned back to Danny, Iggy, and the troublesome woman who could only be Claire. She was leaning against the diner window, her eyes closed with her forehead pressed against the cold, snow-frosted glass. Her brow troubled, he watched her uninjured hand snake up to the collar of her shirt and distractedly tug a necklace out from beneath. Mac's breath caught in his throat as he realized that the simple gold chain she had pulled on held a thin gold band, a wedding ring, which she was now rolling back and forth in her fingers worriedly, her eyes still closed and face taught with tension.

Mac exhaled, suddenly feeling short of breath and dizzy, and he noticed that it was quiet and that the two other men standing in the room were watching him expectantly.

"Yes?" He demanded with exasperation. Danny shifted nervously looking as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it. In the end, it was the old diner owner who spoke up.

"With respect, detective, what the hell is going on?" It was a simple, blunt demand for an answer and Mac appreciated the man's forthrightness, but he couldn't even begin to explain everything he was feeling and thinking at the moment. He knew he needed to talk to Claire, to confirm everything that his heart already knew, but it was a difficult conversation and he didn't know if he had it in him to begin. Tightening his fist, Mac forced himself back into his usual, practical work mindset, retreating behind the routine control of the badge and uniform—this was personal, but he would need all the discipline he usually applied to the Job to keep himself together.

"Of course, I can try to explain." He paused and looked at Claire, knowing that there was very little he could actually explain about her appearance and the situation—really, it was she who had all the answers. Looking back up, he focused on the police lights flashing murkily through diner's window, reminding him that they were still in a crime scene inside. "Is there a place we can go to talk while Danny processes things in here?"

Claire opened her eyes groggily and lifted her head and looked at him, biting her lip she nodded at him.

"Yes." Her voice was strained and Mac began to wonder from what exactly her obvious pain stemmed; Claire had never been the sort of person to be felled by a slightly singed hand or a small headache. She pushed herself out of the booth with effort and stood up, momentarily steadying herself against Iggy's proffered hand.

"Jay?" The diner owner's question was quiet; clearly he too had noticed her troubled looks.

"Stop asking-I'm good, Ig. It's just those damn pills, you know what they do to me. It'll wear off in a few minutes." Slowly she turned back to Mac and offered him a tentative smile and for the briefest second Mac saw a mischievous twinkle in her eyes erase the uncertainty and pain etched on her face. His breath caught in his throat as his mind hurtled back to all those years before when she had looked at him just like that for the first time; it was the day he had fallen in love with her. "This way, _McCanna_, something tells me you're an apple pie kinda guy." And with a half-hearted wink she turned and strode back through the metal doors she had come crashing through earlier, long ago, before his world had shifted.

Danny whistled under his breath and shook his head before looking at his boss. Were it any other circumstance, Mac reflected, Danny's expression would have been comical; clearly, the young CSI was trying to balance looking supportive while also maintaining a straight, professional face. Unfortunately, Danny was an open book. Mac smiled, secretly grateful to have such a good and solid team.

"Danny." Mac nodded at him in dismissal, indicating that it was time for the CSI to get to work, and then turned to Iggy. "Sir?"

The diner owner smiled at him cautiously.

"Well, detective, _do_ you like apple pie?"

Mac ran his hand through his hair and nodded in the affirmative. In fact, apple pie was his favorite, though he wondered what answer the older man was looking for exactly. Instead he settled for a simple, "Yes."

The corners of Iggy's mouth tugged up, creasing the corners his eyes, though he maintained a straight-face.

"Well then, you heard the girl." And with that he too turned and headed through the metal doors, leaving Mac to follow in his wake. Walking towards the kitchen, Mac felt his heart skip as his thoughts spiraled around one single, unbelievable fact: Claire was _here_, with him. Claire was alive.

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**A/N:** Phew, Chapter 1 is done! Let me know what you think, folks - feedback is always appreciated. :) Peace!


	2. Apple Pie

**Title: Claire**

**Chapter 2 - Apple Pie**

**Summary: **It'a just another day on the job until Mac meets with the unexpected and discovers the unbelievable at a crime scene: Claire is alive.

**A/N:** It's an update! It took me a while, but I made sure I had a nice, long chapter ready for everyone. Thank you so much for the lovely reviews and alerts-they are all so encouraging and mean a lot to me. It is my aim to at least try to post once every couple of weeks, as I know it can be rather torturous waiting for slow updaters (like myself). As always, feedback is appreciated (whether it be positive, constructive, or both)-just drop me a line and let me know what you think. Enjoy!

**Content Warning:** See previous note.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own, I don't make money, and I am poor-but if you'd like to take my student loan interest payments off my hands, I'd be more than happy to give them to you. :) CSI: NY and and its characters belong to CBS and Jerry Bruckheimer.

* * *

Stepping inside the small, tiled back room Mac immediately found himself assaulted and ensconced by the residual warmth of the ovens, though he knew they had been turned off long ago, as well as the ever present smell of vanilla, cinnamon, and cardamom. He inhaled deeply and looked across a long aluminum preparation table that extended down the length of the room and he found with delight Claire—Jay, whatever her name was, he wasn't entirely sure at the moment—placing what he presumed was an apple pie, still warm with steam rising from its crust, next to a stack of plates and a small pile of forks.

Mac sighed, smiling as she looked up at him.

"Smells like—"

"Christmas?" She finished, raising her eyebrows in amusement.

"Exactly." He beamed back at her, his heart beating rapidly at the familiarity of their exchange. Iggy stood next to him and chuckled before patting Mac's shoulder and gestured for him to sit down on part of the cook's bench.

"I guess this is going to be interesting."

Mac followed the older man's silent urgings and sat, but looked up questioningly at his cryptic words. Before he could ask what Iggy meant, he found a large slice of delicious smelling apple pie thrust in front of him.

"Eat." Claire commanded him seriously, as though she were a drill sergeant in an army of Italian mothers. Eagerly, Mac accepted the plate of pie and picked up a fork, sampling a small bite of the dessert he had been given while Iggy and Claire sat down with their own slices.

"It's good." He managed to get out around the buttery, flaky crust. He paused. There was a hint of something slightly salty, slightly savory in the flaky crust that danced across his tongue; it was amazing. Scooping up another bite with his fork, he inspected it closely, eyeing it with the same intensity he typically reserved for trace evidence. Thin, mellowed streaks of orange rewarded his careful examination and he nodded with satisfaction, his hunch confirmed. "You've baked cheddar into the crust."

Claire laughed lightly and looked up at him across the table with a grin, her pain from earlier completely forgotten by all appearances save the tell-tale tension between her brows.

"Yes. Good, isn't it?" She smiled unabashedly. "It's a recipe I picked up from a sixth generation pastry baker in Provence." Mac's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"When were you in France?"

"A couple years ago. I went to visit a doctor there." Claire shook her head dismissively and shrugged her shoulders. "Didn't work."

"Doctor?"

Claire swept a strand of hair away from her face and looked at him. Her eyes were honest and searching. It was a reductive gaze that left Mac feeling bare and he felt as though he could be swallowed whole in it as she looked for the answers to the universe in his face. She smiled.

"Pie first, questions later." She looked at Iggy questioningly. "Can you give us a moment?"

"Jay—" The old man began in a worried tone before she cut him off.

"Please?"

Iggy nodded, surrendering to her request and stood up resignedly.

"I'll just go see if Danny-boy wouldn't mind a slice of pie himself." He paused, looked at both of them with a guarded expression, and reached down to pick up the rest of the pie. "Hell, I could do with another piece, too. Might dig out that fifth of bourbon, while I'm at it—it goes good with apples, you know…"

The diner owner's disjointed mutterings faded off as he passed through the metal doors back into the dining area. Finally alone, Mac looked back up at Claire and she smiled weakly at him.

"Don't mind him, he's all bark and hardly any bite." She looked down at his plate of half-eaten pie. "Just like you, it seems—what's the matter, not hungry?"

Mac grinned at her insistence, and shook his head, breaking off another bite for himself, letting his actions speak for themselves as he watched Claire start again on her own piece. For several minutes a gentle quiet descended on the kitchen, save for the quiet scraping of dedicated forks searching for stray chunks of cinnamon-glazed apple. It was a comfortable silence, Mac reflected as he set his fork to rest on his empty plate and looked around. Though the kitchen seemed like most restaurant kitchens he had encountered, tall steel ovens and tables in a sea of white tiled walls and floors, the room was much more welcoming, owing this in part to the hovering scent of fresh pastries which enveloped all who entered.

At last, Mac rested his eyes on the woman sitting across from him; she seemed much more relaxed now than earlier. He watched the curves of her face, amazed at how young she looked despite the small wrinkles setting in around her eyes and the corners of her mouth; they were barely perceptible except to the keen observer looking for proof of the past nine years, as he was. Finishing her own slice, Claire looked up and met his gaze, biting her bottom lip in a thoughtful manner; she too seemed to drink in his face.

He looked at her and she looked back at him, both waiting for the other to speak. Finally, she dropped her gaze to her plate, shooting it an accusing look before pushing it away as if it had suddenly offended her.

"This is completely ridiculous!" The exasperation radiated from her voice as she pushed herself up from the bench and began slowly pacing the far wall of the kitchen. Mac gripped his fists and waited. Abruptly, she stopped pacing and huffed, fixing him with a frustrated stare. "Look. I guess you see a lot of crazy people in the city, but I want you to know that this is real for me." Her gaze was incisive and cut him to his heart. "A couple of years ago something happened and I lost my memory."

"Lost your memory." Mac repeated, hoping the simple restatement would encourage her to divulge more. She raised her eyebrows at him with a guarded expression. It was then that Mac realized that she was waiting for him to shoot her down, to tell her that he didn't believe her and that she was lying. He wondered at her sudden defensiveness, so different from her friendly pie-pushing attitude earlier. "Okay," he conceded, hoping to disarm her. He looked her in the eyes and nodded silently, shifting his gaze slightly to look at the scar on her temple again. "Was it head trauma?"

She sighed in exasperation, touching her fingers to the scar in question. "Something like that." Taking her seat again, she looked over at him apologetically and he could see the frustration ebbing from her face, a sheepish smile began to play at her mouth. "I'm sorry for my outburst, Detective Taylor—"

Mac found himself unable to hold in his surprised laughter, chuckling at her suddenly formal address. It was entirely too like Claire; one minute she would be passionately frustrated with the universe, and the next minute she would be nothing but smiles and apologies, afraid of offending even the littlest mote of dust with her anger.

"_Mac_. It's Mac." He smiled, waving off her confusion. "Or McCanna, if you like. You didn't seem to have any trouble using it earlier—though not even my mother calls me that."

"Okay." She smiled at him. "Mac, then." He felt his chest tighten as he watched a chagrined blush creep across her cheeks; in that moment the memory of the past nine years without her overwhelmed him—nine years was a long time. Though he would have never forgotten Claire, he now realized that there were things about her that had begun to slip away from him or had faded to fuzzy recollections; the exact timbre of her voice when she was angry, how she tucked her hair behind her ear with her opposite hand, and the way she slowly flushed when she was embarrassed. Though he would be pressed to admit it, rediscovering all these small, familiar nuances gave him butterflies; all these years later and Claire still had the power to make him feel like a school boy with a crush.

"Well," Claire continued to smile at him. "I'm sorry for yelling." She shifted in her seat and looked down at her hands. "It's frustrating not knowing who you are. I mean, I don't know my name, or what I did, or... anything." Her voiced faltered and Mac thought he picked up a strain of hopelessness in her words. "Only," she looked back up at him, her eyes uncompromising. "You know who I am, don't you."

It was a statement, not a question, and Mac bit his lip, wondering what he could possibly say, how he could even begin to explain things to her when he knew so little about what had happened to her himself. His heart beat rapidly.

"I think I do." He cautiously responded, realizing how tricky the terrain of the rest of their conversation might be. "But I need to know more about what you do remember before I tell you what I think I know."

She smiled a sad smile and folded her hands on the table, reminding Mac of a suspect sitting at the interview table after they have been brought in for questioning. Of course, she had no way of knowing that, but the similarity was enough to remind him to put his own feelings on the back burner for now. Though this wasn't a case for work, there was a problem here that he needed to solve. Quietly, he mimicked her own posture, placing his folded hands on the table in front of them.

"So, _Mac_, where should I start?" It was a gentle tease with barely any heart in it, but Mac caught the slight lightness in her tone. She might not remember who she was, but subtly and most likely unconsciously she was forging the first few tentative threads of a new connection.

"The Towers," he watched her eyes mist with confusion and he continued. "On September 11th."

The shock on her face was evident as the color again drained from her cheeks. She turned so pale that Mac reached out and grasped her uninjured hand tightly and felt her pulse beating wildly at her wrist.

"I didn't mean to upset you." He gripped her hand tighter.

"No." She shook her head. "It's okay. I just… I was surprised. I don't know why—that _is _where it all started. I just didn't think—I mean, I didn't really believe that—"

"That I'd know?" He finished for her, briefly wondering what it must have been like to live so many years convinced that nobody knew who you were, not even you, and that no one ever would.

"Exactly." Her voice was quiet and not for the first time Mac was forced to wonder if he wasn't in fact talking to a ghost.

"I do. But this is your story." He gently urged her, loosening his grip on her hand slightly but refusing to relinquish his hold entirely. He waited; she would start when she was ready. Finally, she returned the grip and clasped his hand, raising her head to meet his eyes.

"I can't tell you what happened that day; I don't know. There are certain dreams that I have and I think sometimes they're memories, but I don't want them to be." Her voice wavered and he ran his thumb across her fingers reassuringly. "It's dark and hot and there's ash everywhere. It smells like burnt hair and—" She stopped and Mac watched as she slowly and deliberately controlled her breathing. "Anyway, I don't know what happened, not that day and not for several weeks after.

"The first thing I remember, I woke up in a hospital in Whiteplains. They told me I had been transferred there along with half-a-dozen other survivors from the day; all the more local hospitals were either overrun or rendered unusable by the debris from Ground Zero."

Mac nodded, remembering the devastation from the attacks, the silt that lined the streets and clogged the air, making the fair city of New York a ghost city and unlivable. He also remembered combing through all the medical reports for wounded survivors from the attacks, looking desperately for any sign of Claire, and knowing that most of the injured had been transferred farther away as the city was overrun by chaos. Had he seen a medical listing for hospitals in Whiteplains? Guilt seized him as he realized that somehow in his frantic and endless search for Claire he had missed her.

"When I woke up, they told me that I had walked into St. Vincent's the day after the Towers fell, _after _the search and rescue teams had stopped. They told me that I was covered in ash, my hair almost completely burned off, with a large head wound," She paused, touching the star-shaped scar on her temple that Mac had noticed earlier before running a hand through her now perfectly fine hair. "And third degree burns on my hands." Here she turned her hand over and offered her second, injured hand for him to inspect as well. "Just the palms, you see?"

Indeed he did. Gently he held both her hands, careful of her recent burn, and examined the smooth but slightly stiff, white, scarred expanses on the undersides of her hands again. Thoughtfully he caressed the small, dark ring of unmarred skin on her left ring finger.

"And this?" He quietly asked, already certain of the answer. She smiled sadly at him and pulled her hands back, reaching up to her neck and gently fingered her necklace.

"I was wearing a ring at the time." She left it at that and Mac decided not to push, knowing how much more she must have to share before they could ever touch on that discussion. "Anyway, they told me I had retrograde _and_ anterograde amnesia, which, while not common is also apparently not _un_common either, especially for some of us caught up in that day." He watched her shrug with resignment, as if she had long ago reconciled herself to never reclaiming her memory. "As a result, it took me a couple of weeks before permanent memories started to form again—which was a relief in and of itself when that started to happen. Apparently, I'd wake up every morning up until then not remembering the day before, or anything else for that matter. I think the nurses were getting frustrated with me.

"It's almost incomprehensible, really. I have these ghosts of memories, the empty shells they left behind before they disintegrated into ash with the rest of the Towers. I can remember being happy or being—" Her voice faded off and she looked at him pointedly. "I think I had a family, maybe… I don't know, it's all very confused."

Mac nodded understandingly and she laughed at him; he couldn't believe it.

"What?" He demanded, perplexed as she continued to laugh in quiet hysterics. Finally she shook her head vigorously, still chuckling to herself.

"Nothing, nothing! You're just so serious." She breathed deeply and looked at him apologetically. "I just find it hilarious, here I am telling the very short story of my entire life as I know it to a complete and utter stranger I only just met less than an hour ago. And yet, I don't think you're a stranger at all."

"I'm not." He said confidently, trying to make his words as solid as possible in her clearly unsettled world of phantom memories. She glanced up at him and proffered him a grateful smile, lifting her uninjured hand to distractedly massage her temple.

"Well, the long and the short of it is that I can't remember a thing. I was there in Towers—I think—on 9/11 and I can't remember a single godforsaken thing about it—or myself." She sighed dismissively. "The doctors tried to help me locate family, but without a name, or fingerprints for that matter, it was difficult. I spent almost a year in a long-term rehabilitation center in Whiteplains until it at last became clear that I wasn't going to regain my memories... and that no one was going to come looking for me." She offered him a sad grimace and Mac's heart seized under the weight of her last omission. He opened his mouth to speak, to tell her that hadn't slept for weeks, looking for her, praying that she was still alive, but she closed her eyes and pressed on, as if she were reading a clinical timeline of the events from the inside of her eyelids. "I had spoken with my neurologist there, Dr. Moritz, and he knew that I wanted to come back to New York City and search for connections. He's a friend of Iggy's and they had spoken about my situation. Ig's a good man and he offered me a place to stay and my first job; my only job." Opening her eyes, she looked around the backroom and gestured to it all with her hands. "The rest is history."

"So Iggy is not your father?" Mac asked, waiting for her to confirm his declaration and was surprised when she shook her head with a silent laugh.

"No, no, he definitely is—we've got the adoption papers to prove it." She winked at him with a smile. "But is he my birth father? No, he's not." She broadened her smile. "Ig used to own this diner with his wife, Sheila; only it was called the Arts North Diner back then. He was having trouble running it on his own after she died. Really, he should have never taken me in or offered me a job, he just didn't have the money. But he did it anyway, and thank god he did. We pulled this place together and changed the name—and then he offered to adopt me. Not for any real reason. The diner was already listed on the business papers to go to me should anything happen to Ig, and I am _far_ beyond the age of needing adoption, though I've got no actual clue when my birthday is. He said everyone should have some family; it was the kindest thing any person has ever done for me, even coming from an old grizzly bear like him."

She inhaled deeply as she ended her explanation and looked at him, trepidation lurking in the corners of her eyes, waiting for him to speak.

"And your name?" He had to know, curious why her adoptive father had called her Jay.

"What?" She looked surprised before considering his question and nodding. "Back at the hospital and then the rehabilitation center I became accustomed to everyone calling me Jane—you know, _Jane Doe_—and that's what all my papers said anyway, so I kept it. But, Jane Doe makes me sound like one of those corpses your cops are always pulling out of the Hudson." She shuddered briefly at the thought. "No, my name is Jane Compton, Jay for short. Or at least," her voice trailed off and looked at him searchingly, "that's been as close to a name as I've had for as long as I can remember."

At last, it seemed to Mac that they had come to the crux of their conversation, knowing that it was his turn to talk, to share what he knew. Still, this was a lot for both of them. The story that she had woven for him, at times full of personal reflection and at others almost clinical in its empty detail, had torn him up inside.

All this time she had been here in New York, living just barely more than a mile away from him for nine years. Nine years they had missed together, nine years he had longed for her and gone without, thinking her lost in the tragedy of 9/11. He reflected in sadness, it was nine years that she had lived in the dark, almost completely alone, a stranger to her past and a stranger to him. He wouldn't let her be alone anymore, he couldn't, but first he needed to know that she was ready, that the information he had was wanted, before he thrust her old life back on her. Finally, he decided on the proper question he needed to ask.

"Would you even want a different name?" He paused, noting the confusion on her face, and attempted to clarify. "Are you sure you want to know about your past?" Perhaps it was a dumb question, he thought, but he needed her permission before he could let himself share everything with her.

She regarded him quietly, her faced guarded, before speaking in a far away, distant voice.

"That's a cruel question, Detective Taylor." Her words were level and Mac began to wonder if he had wounded her with his well-intentioned caution. "Though I don't think you meant it to be." She smiled at him and raised her eyebrows. "Do the pigeons shit in Central Park?"

Initially surprised by her deadpanned response, Mac's mouth dropped open, only to have it form slowly in a returning smile.

"No," he finally teased her. "I'm pretty sure they all do it on my truck." It was a calculated risk he took, but it worked and now he watched with delight as she leaned forward, gently laughing.

"Really?" She questioned him breathlessly.

"Yes. It's black." Her eyes shined with merriment at his response and he forged on. "I might as well paint a red target on the roof—the better to perfect their aim." This time she laughed harder as her face flushed with the effort; she was beautiful.

"Oh, come on, Mac!" She finally pleaded, leaning back from the table as she slowly regained her normal breathing, a smile dancing on her lips. "Give the pathetic amnesiac a break!"

He chuckled at her response, pleased by t he ease with which she had used his name, and nodded in acquiescence, though he was loathe to leave the bright levity of the moment. Somewhere inside his heart twisted and ached as he remembered so many more shining, happy moments with her long ago, and then the loss he had felt in her stark absence after 9/11. His stomach flipped as it finally began to sink in that things would again change.

"Your birthday is next week, December 21st." It was the most basic of information he could give her, and yet he watched the surprise on her face as understanding crested over her: she had a birthday, a real one. "You'll be thirty-seven."

"Thirty-seven?" Her eyebrows shot up, half-surprised and he looked at her questioningly.

"Yes. Why?"

She smiled at him and shook her head dismissively.

"It's odd to think off myself as being any older than the nine years I can actually remember—but I guess we can't be children forever, can we?" Her eyes sparkled as she winked at him, though Mac couldn't help but notice the faint sadness in her voice.

"I think," He paused a moment, considering his next words. "I think you've always struck people as youthful. And I don't think that will ever change; you're still the same, though now that you mention it you do strike me as a bit of a child." She shot him an indignant look but he continued with a sly smile. "After all, how many sane thirty-seven year olds do you see running around in cutt-off shorts during a snow storm?"

It was a simple statement of fact, not a question, and she affected a mock pout at his observation.

"It's warm in the kitchen; there are a lot of ovens." It was the only sheepish protest she offered to his remark.

"Right." He grinned back at her.

"And sanity is overrated." She responded, pointedly ignoring his warm but sarcastic tone, before leaning forward with an earnest, eager expression on her face. "Do I have a name?"

Mac held his breath and nodded.

"Claire, right?" Her question surprised him and he looked at her for explanation. "That's what you called me before?"

Remembering his earlier outburst, Mac sighed heavily. How much should he tell her about their relationship? He didn't want to frighten her by insisting that she was his wife. Carefully, he chose his words.

"Yes. Claire Conrad."

She pressed her lips and nodded slowly; a look of disappointment crossed her face.

"Oh."

Again Mac wondered if perhaps she did not really want her old life back or her old name, as she was already well attached to the life she had built from scratch here at the diner. Finally she looked up at him and offered him a cold but grateful smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Claire. It's a good name—it sounds right."

"You don't have to be Claire." He ventured fairly, not really wanting his words to be true. "You can still be Jay."

Surprised widened her eyes and she looked at him before offering a hesitant smile.

"I suppose so." Her words were guarded. Mac wondered where her eager and inquisitive energy had fled. He watched her again pull on the gold chain around her neck, worriedly fingering the wedding band that Mac now recognized as the one he had placed on her hand a life time ago, in a different world, when they had gotten married. "And my family?"

Mac bit his lip, frightened of giving her too much information too soon and overwhelming her. She noticed his hesitation and cautiously extended her uninjured hand to grip his own.

"I'm a big girl, Mac." She squeezed his hand tightly before withdrawing it quickly, a sad expression on her face as if it was his hand that had just burned her now and not the cookie sheet earlier. She shook her head, as if shaking off thoughts of her unknown family and plastered on a smile. "It's okay, we'll get to that at some point. So how do I know you?"

Mac opened his mouth to speak but stopped, unsure how to proceed. Just as he was weighing his options he heard the metal doors behind him swing open with vigorous clanging.

"Don't mean to barge in, you two." Iggy declared in a manner that made it clear that that was exactly his intention. "But I think your detectives might need a little directing." He looked at Mac and nodded his head in the direction of the doors, summoning him to the other room.

Mac turned to Claire apologetically and mouthed a silent sorry as he stood up. She smiled at him and waved him off, standing up herself and pausing to gather up their dirty forks and plates.

"It's the Job, right?" She winked at him before turning to deposit the dishes in the sink behind her.

Mac froze. He was certain she couldn't know, couldn't remember, that that was _her_ phrase. _The Job_, she used to call it whenever he would start to explain why he had to leave her in the middle of breakfast, or why he'd come home at night exasperated with the politics of a case but was unwilling to unload it on another detective. _You're the boss, remember? You don't have to take this case._ She would gently chide him, already smiling at the answer. _But you do; it's the Job_.

As Mac turned to walk through the metal doors and into the rest of the diner, he considered that though Claire claimed not to remember anything about her past, she had already proved otherwise tonight, though she might not realize it. She knew his name, his _real_ name, without prompting and she teased him with easy familiarity, even about the Job. He smiled and began to feel an old, hardened weight that had sat on his chest for nine long years lift imperceptibly.

* * *

Entering the main dining area of the Pop & Pie, Mac was greeted with a sight that made the Crime Lab Boss in him despair. Danny, Sheldon and Don all stood by the door idly, turned in conversation with one another as though they had just walked into the diner for a cup of coffee and not to process a crime scene. Stella at least, he noted with some satisfaction, was sitting at the counter checking the labels on several small evidence bags and arranging her kit back in order.

"What's going on?" He asked as he approached his partner. She looked up at him searchingly, and then looked past his shoulder to see if Claire had followed. He wanted to share with his friend what he had discovered but knew this was not the time. Schooling his features, he gave her no indication of what had gone on and she took the hint. Shaking her head in amusement, Stella nodded at the group of guys by the door.

"Sometimes it's like herding cats with them."

Mac chuckled, all too willing to concede the point, as much as he respected and valued his team.

"Is everyone done processing?"

Stella nodded at his question and then looked at him nervously.

"Mac, they're worried about you." He frowned at her remark. "Otherwise they would have headed back to the lab already. And let's be fair; you weren't exactly acting your usual 'just-the-facts-Ma'am' Detective Taylor self earlier."

Nodding at the truth in her words, Mac looked back at the others, noting their inquisitive glances directed in his direction despite their lighthearted conversation with each other.

"Hey, Mac?" Stella's voice was soft and tender. He looked down at her in her seated position and smiled at the kindness of his best friend. "She's…?" Her question trailed off, unwilling to utter the rest without confirmation. He nodded.

"Yes." He nodded at her and saw the second question lurking in her eyes. "And I'm fine."

Stella's face broke out in a smile. Standing up, she straightened herself out and looked at him.

"Good." He could tell she wanted to say more, probably with more questions to ask, but she held it back. Instead, she turned to pick up her kit, patted him briefly on the shoulder, and walked over to the errant detectives.

"Are the bad guys taking a night off for the snow and no one bothered to tell me?"

Mac heard her call out to the men bitingly, rallying the troops as it were. It was then that he realized that Stella, too, had been waiting to check on him before leaving the scene. He smiled and reflected that he should have known better—herding cats or not, Stella Bonasera was more than capable of directing his team without him.

Amused, he watched the men look abashed at Stella's chiding as they began to mobilize themselves. Don and Danny both looked over at him inquiringly but he simply nodded back, dismissing them for the time being.

Mac heard the doors behind him crash open again, followed by the staccato echo of rapid, heavy footsteps against the linoleum floor. Turning, Mac watched a panicked Iggy rush up to him. Alarmed, Mac grabbed the old man by the arm to steady him.

"What's wrong?"

Iggy gave him a worried look.

"Are the paramedics still here?" Surprised by his words, Mac looked the man over quickly, checking for any apparent injuries, but Iggy shook him off. "Not me—Jay."

Mac's eyes shot to the kitchen doors again, unable to see through them, and started off for the back room at a run.

"Hawkes!" He yelled over his shoulder for the former M.E., hoping the young doctor hadn't followed Stella outside yet. "I need help, here!"

Pushing through the metal doors, Mac stopped in his tracks, arrested by the scene before him. Claire was fine, or at least she seemed so to him at first glance. She was sitting back down at the preparation table, a cleaning cloth in hand. She didn't look up, she didn't move when he entered the kitchen, but stared straight ahead, lost in thought.

Something was wrong, Mac realized, as he approached her more cautiously. Her eyes were vacant and her mouth hung slightly agape. He walked over to her side and sat down next to her, lightly circling her hand with his own, and searched for her pulse, which fluttered erratically beneath his calloused fingers. Her body swayed with the shifting movement of the bench as he took his place beside her, but otherwise she remained motionless, a frozen statue.

Just then Sheldon and Iggy both rushed through the door, the former with a small medical kit in-hand.

"… she's had them before and she takes her medication for them, but I've _never_ seen one last this long before. Never."

Sheldon nodded, pulling a small light from the kit and sitting down on the other side of her. Mac watched, confused and concerned as the doctor leaned in front of Claire, shining the light into both of her eyes, his face the image of doctorly concerned.

"When did it start?"

"I'm not sure exactly." Iggy ran his hands through his wispy hair. "I opened the doors to let the detective back into the other room, and when I turned around she was just sitting there like this, completely checked out." Mac tightened his grip on Claire's limp hand and watched Sheldon take her pulse. He felt the table shift as the older man finally took a seat across from them. "I'm used to waiting for these to pass, but like I said, this is too long—normally she just stops for a couple of seconds."

Sheldon nodded and looked at Mac with concern. Finally, Mac took his turn to speak, his voice less controlled than he would have liked.

"What's wrong with her?"

Sheldon shook his head and shined his light back in Claire's eyes searchingly. She blinked, but otherwise seemed unaware of his presence.

"I'm not sure. Iggy says she has absence seizures sometimes, but those only last for a matter of seconds at most and it sounds like she's been like this for at least a minute or two."

Mac looked worriedly into Claire's face again, disturbed by her far-away gaze. Suddenly her hand jerked in his as her body went rigid and her eyes fluttered rapidly before she began falling forward against the table. She sighed. Mac reached across her and grabbed her shoulders, steadying her. Her body fell limp and she crumbled against him, her head rolling forward against his neck. He could feel her short, shallow breaths against his skin. Lifting his head, he looked at Sheldon in panic.

"Help me get her on the table." Sheldon issued the command in a measured voice, the doctor in him taking over. Mac shifted Claire's limp body in his arm and lifted her up—between the two of them they eased her down across the aluminum table top.

"Is she okay?" Iggy's voice was tight with concern and Mac looked up sympathetically at the older man.

"I think," Sheldon paused, again flashing his light in her eyes, though this time he had to peel back her eyelids to check if her pupils were dilated. "I think she's just passed out. I think what we just witnessed was the end of her seizure—it's not uncommon for those who suffer from epilepsy to pass out after a particularly traumatic episode."

"Seizure." Mac repeated dumbly, caught up in his relief at seeing Claire's gentle face return to normal. Her face was still blank, but he could tell she was simply sleeping now, her face softer than the vacant, ghost-like mask she had worn in the minutes previous.

"Yes." Sheldon looked up at him, concern in his eyes. "Absence seizures are short seizures without convulsant activity—they should only last a couple of seconds, usually."

"What should we do for her?" Iggy's question echoed Mac's own thoughts.

"Let her rest, that's the most important thing." Sheldon looked at both of the men closely. "And keep a close eye on her. If she has a history of epilepsy, then she should most likely be fine when she wakes up, though she should see her neurologist soon—maybe he can explain why this time was different."

"Of course." Iggy nodded. "I'll call Moritz in the morning. Should I take her to a hospital?"

"No, I don't think so." Sheldon shook his head. "Just take her home, let her rest, and watch her—I've got some baby aspirin in the kit that she should take when she wakes up. She's going to have quite the headache."

"Thank you." Iggy gave the doctor a grateful smile.

"Do you need help getting her home?" Mac ventured, hoping the older man would be willing to talk with him about his daughter. Plus, he admitted to himself, he wasn't sure he could leave Claire now that he had finally found her.

"Yeah, that'd be great." Iggy nodded. "Thanks."

"Uh, Mac?" Sheldon pulled a small packet of baby aspirin out of the med kit and closed it up, handing the pills to Iggy. "Can we talk?" He motioned toward the kitchen doors.

Nodding, Mac headed towards the doors himself and paused. Looking back, he glanced at Claire's sleeping form on the preparation table and then up at the diner owner, his face the epitome of fatherly concern.

"I'll be right back." With that he turned and walked through the doors, Sheldon following quick on his heels.

* * *

Back in the main room of the diner, Mac noticed that Stella, Don, and Danny had all returned, concern etched on their faces, though Stella at least had the sense to look apologetically at Mac as he entered.

"Is she okay?" Danny's question cut across him and he remember that Claire had become Danny and Lindsay's friend during her time here at the diner. He nodded.

"Sheldon says she should be okay." Then, remembering the young doctor's request, he turned to Sheldon. "Make it quick."

"Uh, well…"

Mac's eyebrows rose as he watched the man flounder in his words. Finally Sheldon looked at his boss square in the eye, seemingly having decided on the more direct approach.

"What's going on?"

Mac sighed, knowing he was going to have to explain things to the rest of the team at some point, though now wasn't the best time.

"Are you asking as a doctor or out of idle curiosity?" Mac tried to hold the bite in his last words back, not wanting to lash out at Sheldon but feeling his control over his emotions wearing thin.

Sheldon cocked his head to the side, considering Mac's question.

"Would you believe me if I said both?"

Mac stared at his colleague and then turned to examine the faces of the rest of his team. Sighing again, he sank into a nearby chair in defeat and turned to face them all.

"Yes, I would." He ran his hands distractedly through his hair before continuing. "I was going to have to do this at some point anyway, I guess—though now probably isn't great timing, with Sinclair waiting on the findings from tonight."

"Sinclair can hang it." Don's clear statement surprised Mac, though he nodded in acknowledgement of the detective's unflinching support.

"I want all of you to go back to work after I'm done talking." He looked up and pointedly gazed at each one in turn, "I mean it." His eyes at last rested on Stella who gave him an encouraging smile. "I think you all know that I lost my wife, Claire, on 9/11. She worked with a fair-trade lobby that kept its offices on the 81st floor of the South Tower. When the Towers fell, I thought…" Mac faltered as guilt seized his heart.

Everyone had assumed that Claire had died that day, along with the others in the Towers. Her office was located in the middle of the crash site on the South Tower—survival should have been impossible. And yet, she was here. Alive.

He cleared his throat and began again.

"Her body was never recovered, but as all of you know, that wasn't unusual for the horrors of that day." Mac watched Danny's and Sheldon's heads bob in understanding—it was a well known fact that the search and rescue workers had only recovered a fraction of the bodies trapped in the Towers, as so many more had been consumed in the towering infernos and then obliterated by the Trade Center collapse, leaving no closure for the victims' families. Mac grimaced as the image of the burning Towers raced across his mind; shrugging off the awful thought he pressed on. "I looked for her at the hospitals and in the survivor listings, but I didn't find her. Everyone thought she was dead." He shook his head and looked down at his hands again, closing his eyes to shut out the truth of his failure. "I didn't know," he whispered.

"Boss?" Mac looked up at Danny's query, attentive concern evident on the young CSI's face.

"It's okay, Danny." Mac shook his head and leaned back in the chair, considering the young man again. "How long would you say you've known Jay?"

Danny scratched his head, clearly perplexed by the question.

"Maybe five years now? I've been coming here a long time. Hell, I was a regular by the time I brought Lindsay here for our third date." He flashed the group a smile at the memory before continuing. "Jay's been here all that time; she pretty much runs the place. Why, she's not...?"

Mac just nodded at Danny's unfinished question, amazed that for the past five years he had been living only a single degree of separation away from Claire and hadn't known.

"Look Mac," Don finally cut in, finally stringing together the pieces Mac had laid out for them. "You're not saying that Jay is—"

"Yes." Mac bluntly cut him off, relieved to finally have it out. "Claire's alive."

Don whistled lowly under his breath.

"Unbelievable." Danny shook his head in disbelief.

"Do you know how?" Stella finally spoke up, moving across the room to sit by him. Mac shook his head.

"She says she doesn't remember—she's completely lost her memory." Mac ran his hand through his hair, frustrated by the lack of answers. Looking up, he stared at the rest of his team before turning his eyes to Sheldon. "Does that answer your question?"

The young doctor nodded silently with a thoughtful look on his face.

"I noticed she has a scar on her right temple; if she sustained significant enough trauma to the temporal lobe, that could explain both her epilepsy and her memory loss."

Mac smiled grimly, gratified even now by the perceptiveness of the members of his team. He was glad for the former M.E.'s medical assessment, though it only confirmed his own suspicions.

"It's likely. She said she was admitted to the hospital with a head wound the day after the Towers fell." Mac looked around at his team, who were all staring intently back at him. It was an awkward silence, one which he didn't have time for. "That's it, back to work." None of them moved, though Danny at least looked away nervously. "_Now_, or I'll have all of you pulling double shifts." He didn't mean to sound so biting with his team. Truly, he was touched by their concern, but now was not the time or place, and he desperately wanted to get back to Claire's side.

The diner suddenly burst into a flurry of movement and apologetic mumblings at his command. Mac watch his team assemble themselves and their kits, heading for the door one by one. The young detectives having already sheepishly waved goodbye, Stella paused by the door and looked back at him.

"Mac—"

"Not now, Stella." His voice was gruff, gruffer than he meant it to be and Stella nodded in surrender, her eyes watchful. Stepping closer he offered her a smile, hoping he hadn't hurt her too much with his words. "Stel, I need you to take the lead on the case—I don't want to saddle you with Sinclair; I'll deal with him. I just need a little time."

She reached out and touched his arm; it was a simple, understanding gesture that he was grateful for.

"Don't look so sad." She squeezed his arm and let go, turning to open the door to the snowy outdoors. She flashed him a quick smile before heading out, letting a member of the crime scene clean up team in as she walked through the door.

Nodding to the young man, Mac turned back to the now empty diner and picked up his heavy winter coat and kit from the booth he had discarded them in much earlier before heading back towards the kitchen. He knew the clean up team would be working outside for a while, but the clean up inside should be relatively quick. Soon Iggy would be able to lock up the diner and go home with Claire.

* * *

Walking back into the kitchen, Mac noticed with a heavy heart Claire's still sleeping form lying prone on the aluminum table. She looked cold, despite the still lingering heat from the ovens that continually blanketed the back room. Looking around the kitchen, he couldn't see any sign of Iggy, though he found it hard to believe he would have left his daughter for very long. Moving to the other side of the room, Mac looked out the back window and spotted the old diner owner pacing beneath an alley light, talking to someone on the phone—probably the neurologist he had spoken of, Dr. Moritz.

Turning back to Claire, Mac set down his kit and unfolded his jacket, gently placing it over her small frame in an effort to give her some warmth. Resuming his seat at the table from before, he cupped her arm with his hand and watched her sleep. Her breaths were shallow but regular, he noted with relief, and her face was peaceful. He marveled, looking at her; that she was even there at all was a miracle. If he had been asked three hours ago, he would have declared all of this completely impossible. And yet, here she was, with him.

Impulsively, he reached down and grasped her hand, softly tugging it out from under his coat. Turning her hand over, he examined her smooth, scarred palm yet again, fascinated by the small ring of unmarred skin around her ring finger. Thoughtfully he stroked her hand before folding it into his own fingers, grateful for its solidness beneath his own palms. He sighed, letting the world beyond the kitchen, beyond him and Claire, drop away. She was real.

Curiously, Mac glanced out the back window again, noticing Iggy still talking on his phone beneath the alley light. Dr. Mortiz must have a lot to say about Claire's seizures—or a lot of questions, Mac figured. Hopefully, it didn't mean anything bad for Claire.

Content to wait for the older man to return, Mac took one more glance at Claire's face to make sure she was alright before resting his head on his arm next to her shoulder, his hands still entwined with her fingers. Enjoying the peaceful warmth of the kitchen, Mac's eyes fluttered, fighting to stay awake, before finally falling shut as he drifted off. For the first time in nine years, Mac fell asleep by Claire's side.

* * *

**A/N:** Okay folks, that's it for now! See that little button? Give it a little clickity-click and let me know what you think! Peace. :)


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